Who would think Catholics would be targeted by FBI?

A few years ago, after I’d written about how the Catholic church had borne a disproportionate share of criticism regarding the sex abuse scandal, a number of readers responded with such negativity that they all but confirmed the anti-Catholic bias.

People generally protest when I write about the way the Catholic church has been targeted by the mainstream media and in our secular culture. They resort to the usual tropes of “whiner,” “pedophile apologist,” and “misogynist.” That no longer surprises me.

What did surprise me was the recent revelation that the FBI had targeted traditional Catholics as domestic terrorists. Relying on resources provided by the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, the feds drew up a list of groups that supported the Latin Mass and described them as “radical traditionalist Catholics.”

This internal memo seemed to authorize surveillance of Catholics who were simply exercising their First Amendment rights to practice their faith. Not everyone supports the Latin Mass. In fact, Pope Francis has shown hostility toward a rite and ritual that is as beautiful as it is central to Catholic tradition.

I was too young to remember much about Vatican II, which essentially eliminated the Mass in Latin, but I’ve spoken with many people who were adults at the time. Some supported the move to the vernacular, saying that it helped bridge the divide between priest and parishioners, while others lamented the loss of beauty and mystery.

I have another perspective. When I lived abroad in France and then in Italy, I appreciated the fact that I could actually go into a church and hear Mass in a language that pretty much everyone could understand. Far from being divisive, the use of a single language brought people from different backgrounds together.

But that’s not really the point. Catholics get to decide how they want to run their show. The federal government doesn’t have a role in that. When the FBI starts targeting people because of the way they worship, that’s a big problem. It’s much bigger than a former attorney general like Josh Shapiro getting on his “anti-pedophile priest/anti-Little Sisters of the Poor” crusade to make a nice political name for himself. That it worked for nowGov. Shapiro doesn’t make it any more legitimate.

And it’s a lot bigger than a bunch of women who insist on making cringe-inducing comments like “keep your (assault) rosaries off my ovaries” and “if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”

The idea that the church is anti-woman is a fallacy that only the most limited intellects have ever accepted.

That the federal government has begun to view Catholics as “others” is not exactly a revelation to those of use who are well-versed in the history of bigotry.

My people have always been seen as a threat to this nation. We all know that John F. Kennedy had to offer reassuring words to anxious Protestants when he was running for office. He promised he would not allow his religious beliefs to keep him from acting in the national interest. He did not disavow his faith.

These days, it seems as if many in the public sphere feel the need not only to disavow their Catholic faith, but to openly ridicule it.

That, in turn, has given those outside of the faith permission to vilify people who share views that the society might find unpalatable, like the innate humanity of the unborn child and the essential dignity of the aging body.

The FBI targeted traditional Catholics because it relies on groups like the SPLC, which foment hatred under the guise of stopping it. That we live in a country where the government compiles secret lists of what someone once called “deplorables” is reminiscent of the countries from which refugees have been forced to flee. That’s something this immigration attorney never thought she’d live to see.